Revision of This Week in the Twitterverse from May 15th, 2013 at 11:52 PM

The Stuff the Other People Already Posted

I post once per week, and Brian posts daily. So sometimes he gets to the good stuff first. Now, I could put in the effort to go find other stuff. But I am exceedingly lazy, so we’ll all just pretend that he didn’t already post this stuff, and we will laugh at it anew. Good? Good.

With this week’s announcement of Marvin Robinson’s transfer, Michigan lost the quintessential OMG Shirtless icon. I’d go so far as to say that M-Rob was the patriarch of the movement. But when Angry Michigan OMG Shirtless Hating God closes a door, He opens a window into some crazy stuff. Behold what AMOMGSHG has given us:

Maybe this is a response to the Abercrombie and Fitch CEO saying she didn’t want… uh… larger people wearing their clothing. Maybe they just honestly forgot to wear shirts that day. But I like to think that they were assuring the apprehensive Michigan faithful that the shirtless tradition would continue, albeit in a much more MANBALL fashion.

This also has the makings of a great ‘positive self-image’ campaign:

It doesn’t matter if you’re a little pasty white. Or if you’re carrying a few extra pounds around the midsection. Or if you don’t have what would be considered a “neck” by traditional standards. Or if you make questionable fashion and facial hair choices. As long as you can pancake a sumbitch or two, you are beautiful.

[One side note: Brian referred to this incident as “AmBearcrombie and Bearfitch.” I humbly submit “ManBearCrombie” as an alternate nickname. ]

Water = Wet.

Andrew Wiggins is the #1 overall basketball recruit for the 2013 class. Number one overall recruits engender a great deal of attention, and their commitments are often accompanied by heightened emotions among the more passionate (read: unstable) fans. So when Wiggins chose Kansas this week, we saw some less than flattering comments[NOTE: here be profanity, racism, homophobia, and general NSFWness] from North Carolina fans:

And Florida State fans:

And Kentucky fans:

I haven’t seen this amount of hate for a Canadian kid since Ike from South Park. But while this crap is bad and inappropriate from anyone, I’d like to speak to the Kentucky fans for a minute here. So please, put down your moonshine, bourbon, and/or two-week-old leftover mint julep from Derby weekend and listen up.There are a bunch of reasons you don’t get to complain about this, other than the obvious “he’s a kid who can to do what he wants and it’s his life not yours ya crazy hilltopper.” In your case, you have the most ridiculous recruiting class in the history of the written word. You have six McDonalds All-Americans. And you get these kinds of kids ALL THE TIME. Remember Anthony Davis? The kid did more with one eyebrow than I could ever hope to do with two. So, shut up.

But there’s one Kentucky fan who… you know what? I’m just going to let his or her words speak for themselves:

I had a nickname picked out for you and everything :’(

While we’re on the subject:

Christine Brennan wrote a piece on USA Today yesterday claiming that we are making “too much” of Twitter rants like the ones above. She specifically cited the reactions to Wiggins’ decision:

This decision of course did not please fanatics who follow those other three schools, so they did what any red-blooded, hot-headed sports fan does these days and jumped on Twitter to call a high school senior every awful name and slur imaginable. Internet stories then were written quoting some of the most egregious comments, thereby giving those who tweeted them a great victory: mainstream media validation.

/Awkward collar-pull.

Her main point is that this kind of stuff isn’t a big deal because it doesn’t reach that wide of an audience:

One fan who attacked Wiggins on Twitter had 183 followers. Another had 222. Three others had 296, 394 and 525 followers, respectively…. That doesn't mean that exactly that many people read each particular tweet. More might have seen the comments if they were re-tweeted or after a search for what was being said about Wiggins' decision, but it's also true that not every follower of each account saw each tweet, Twitter being a river that just keeps flowing along…. So, to put things into perspective, these so-called worldwide social commentators would have reached more people if they had stood up at a high school assembly and just started screaming.

To this I would make a few comments:

I think it’s pretty clear by the tone and tenor of this article (and most that deal in such grotesqueries) that the purpose is not to engage in applause or debate, but to call this behavior to the pillories to be derided as totally unacceptable and worthy of mockery. There’s a reason half of the tweets in that article have been deleted; when peoples’ worst decisions are pointed out to them, most people can recognize their errors.

Challenging someone on a stupid comment may give the speaker “validation,” but failing to confront terrible behavior condones that behavior, and just because something doesn’t reach thousands of people doesn’t mean it should go unchallenged. To her example, if someone stood up in a high school gymnasium and starting saying he hoped someone tore an ACL, I like to think I’d say something, even if only a handful of people heard it. If you heard the guy behind you at Michigan Stadium saying some of this stuff, wouldn’t you say something?

These aren’t comments that are floating off into the ether. This stuff is going directly to these kids’ iPhones and laptops. Who cares if two dozen people read it if one is the target of this hate-filled crap?

If there is something more fun to mock than stupid people saying stupid stuff, I haven’t found it.

Peewee SMASH

SOMEONE GET HIM SOME PROTEIN he’s looking at me with that hungry look again and I don’t know if my computer screen is rated to stop a Peewee.

The Internet is for…

Highly touted defensive tackle prospect Elisha Shaw is a high four-star to most of the sites, but he really wants that 5th star. And he sent a tweet to that effect, and included a screenshot of the rankings on 247 on his iPad to make his point. The only problem is that Shaw was, shall we say, multitasking, as evidenced by the other open tabs in his browser:

Apparently, and from what I can gather, this “Isis Taylor” is a star of the adult film industry, and the website listed is a repository of adult-style film productions. I think rather than chalking this one as evidence of the “be careful what you tweet” rule, we should instead refer to the much older “take caution in your attempts to access certain materials” rule. The new rules don’t eliminate the old rules, people. They make the old rules harder to follow. Stupid technology.

I really hope coaches don’t hold this one against the kid. As far as questionable behavior among young men goes, this is right up there with “failed to call teacher ‘sir’” and “failed to cross at a crosswalk.” Besides, based on Ms. Taylor’s Wikipedia page, she is of a legal age to perform such work, has won many awards for her efforts, and is relatively attractive by most objective measures. And I remind you we live in a world in which a Tim Brando sex tape is a thing that has been postulated, so IT COULD BE SO SO SO MUCH WORSE.

On the bright side, though, I think we can gain some real insight into recruits with a quick glance at their browsers. To test this hypothesis, I went back and looked at similar tweets from some past Michigan recruits:

Intriguing, no?

Jose Canseco Update

I… I don’t know how to say this, but Jose has stopped being insane. Well, let me clarify: he has stopped posting his insanity on Twitter. He’s said some run-of-the-mill weird stuff, but the kind of stuff your goofy uncle says, not the full-blown tinfoil crackpot stuff we’ve come to know and love. This is quite a blow to my world view, and I’m frankly not sure if this column can survive in his absence.

On the other hand…

METTA WORLD PEACE UPDATE:

Metta tried to provide some insightful commentary on the Knicks/Pacers series. The key was proper condiment selection:

I'm sure there are still children in Kansas named William, then nicknamed Billy. However, the problem arises when you try to associate them with objects that obviously do not exist in their home state.

comment number 2 that you made about deplorable behavior. Specifically this comment, "but failing to confront terrible behavior condones that behavior, and just because something doesn’t reach thousands of people doesn’t mean it should go unchallenged."

that is spot on, condoning the behavior is much more egregious than validating it.

I think condiments are defined more by the function they serve than by common characteristics. If you use apple sauce to cover some sort of grill-able object I don't see any reason not to call it a condiment

That rapper Jay da Bullshit is horrible. You never choose a career in rap over a good degree (unless your Kanye West) that is something you choose when there are no other choices to make. I guess that is the type of player one recruits when lying in the weeds.

If his rap is that bad and he's pursuing a music career over football, he must really suck at football. I really feel like these "under the radar recruits" for Sparty must be really "off the god damn planet radar".